The goofy right has a new bogeyman--make that bogeywoman: Sonia (not Maria, as Mike Huckabee called her in a statement denouncing her nomination to the Supreme Court) Sotomayor. And boy, are they freaked.

Rush Limbaugh has compared her to David Duke, which is flabbergasting even by Limbaugh standards.

Newt Gingrich merely calls her racist. Ex-congressman (but still-crazy man) Tom Tancredo is pissed because she's a member of the National Council of La Raza, which he called "a Latino KKK without the hoods or nooses." This would be the best joke I'd heard in years if it weren't for G. Gordon Liddy.

As usual, Gordo takes the cake. He certainly doesn't like Sotomayor's Puerto Rican ancestry (he certainly had a lifetime's worth of trouble with some Cubans), but he also seems to be laboring under the truly archaic notion that women shouldn't be on the Supreme Court. Check out this quote: "Let's hope that the key conferences aren't when she's menstruating or something, or just before she's going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then."

Lord have mercy. The old white guys are really scared this time.

And they should be. If the election of Barack Obama wasn't the death knell for white guy dominance of American power, that day is coming soon. White guys have had a tough enough time keeping women out of the mix, but soon enough white folks will lost their majority status in this country. Oh, the humanity.

The crazy white guys seem to think that they'll be lined up against the wall once the females and the browns "take over." Perhaps those crazy white guys should be taken out and shot, but that's not going to happen. Rather, they'll simply be ignored.

All this has happened before and will happen again.

Since the time of its inception, the United States has been a nation of immigrants, a nation of multiple languages and nation of a myriad of opinions. That hasn't changed much in more than two hundred years, and it's not going to change any time soon.

Still, the vehemence of the attacks on Sotomayor is weird. I don't get it. Many of these same people vociferously defended the right of certain judges to remain members of "whites-only" clubs, and yet they're getting on Sotomayor's case because she once said that her life experience as a Latina might make her a better judge than an old white guy.

Maybe they're afraid she's actually right.

But it doesn't matter. As a soon-to-be-old white guy, I don't mind passing the torch to those who don't look like me or think like me or live like me. For starters, I'm pretty comfortable around people who aren't like me. Indeed, I get a little creeped out when too many people start agreeing about anything. That's when I know there's a problem.

Which is why I simply cannot be too concerned about these particular old white guys. The notion of Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme Court might actually give them nightmares (although I think much of this whining is simply for show), and that's okay. This is America. You're allowed to believe whatever stupid things you want to believe. Your nightmares are your private concern, and the government has no business butting into them.

But we don't have to pay attention to stupid people saying stupid things. There are plenty of reasonable arguments against Sotomayor's nomination. Reasonable, but flimsy. She's gonna get her robes. And then...life will go on. As it has every day in the United States of America since July 4, 1776.

The old white guys will find some other crusade, but just like the crusades, eventually the willpower will fail. The old white guys will simply fade away. And almost no one will notice.

I imagine that's what those old crazy white guys fear the most.

Jon Worley would rather fade away than burn out.